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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

2011 Bowman's Chrome Future Die-Cut Arodys Vizcaino

In a radio interview with ESPN radio yesterday, Braves GM Frank Wren commented that the Braves currently have eight starting pitchers on the roster: Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Brandon Beachy, Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado, and Kris Medlen. The one name not mentioned was super prospect Arodys Vizcaino, who Baseball America just rated as the number 2 prospect in the Braves system. Vizcaino moved up the ladder quite quickly in '11 after missing a chunk of 2010 with an arm injury. He began the year at High A Lynchburg, where he started 9 games before moving on to AA Mississippi. Eight starts and three relief appearances later, the kid found himself at AAA Gwinnett-where he appeared in all of six games (all in relief, as he was being prepared to help the big league club down the stretch). Summoned to Atlanta on August 10th after Scott Proctor was released, Vizcaino ended up with seventeen K's in 17.1 innings and a WHIP of 1.442-which the twenty-year old righty should improve upon with experience. With a log jam of starting pitchers ahead of him, Arod's future very well may be out of the 'pen- where he could be very dominating with his mid-high 90s fastball, sharp curveball, and solid changeup.

In picking up this card, I went a little bit out of the norm since I primarily buy base Topps products. The card itself is reminiscent of those insert cards of the 90s. Interesting fact from the back of card: Vizzy hails from the same Dominican hometown as Michael Pineda. How would you like to have been opposing those two while growing up?